An international survey presented respondents with public policy choices and asked to allocate tax units to different policies in the domains of culture, economics, education, foreign aid, infrastructure and environment.

Evaluating two policies with different outcome times – one more imminently and one that would benefit future generations – at once elicited more intergenerationally equitable outcomes than when deciding over bills with different impact times one at a time. When individuals judge alternative choices, presenting the viewpoints of two generations concurrently balanced intergenerational contributions.

Finding this intergenerational equilibrium pattern in Asia and the U.S. leverages the joint decision making advantage into a human-imbued nudge to overcome global common goods dilemmas. Based on the results, policy makers are advised to consider a multi-faceted decision schema and set up age-differentiated global governance consortia.

Download the full paper ‘The Future is Now: How Joint Decision Making Curbs Hyperbolic Discounting but Blurs Social Responsibility in The Intergenerational Equity Public Policy Domain” for free here.

Situationist Contributor Julia M. Puaschunder is an Associate of the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences Center for the Environment working on intergenerational equity constraints in the domains of environmental sustainability, overindebtedness and social welfare reform of an aging Western world population.